


Silver Lining

by acupoftea



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Other, a lot of greek myths a lot of symbolism a lot of pain, also are they dead, also fascinated by the use of voice and clementine and that whole concept, and none of it is how you think look don't think about it too hard, are they alive, bc it wouldn't be a true tribute to telltale if there wasn't some kind of suffering, bc man that seems like a really important and really unexplored facet of clem's character, is anything real, its a fun time, kind of hades and persephone au while also being an orpheus and eurydice au, who knows haha not me!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-26 00:19:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16208723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acupoftea/pseuds/acupoftea
Summary: His skin is obsidian black, and she understands when he speaks, soft and commanding. His voice, the only voice that could raise the river styx.“Tell me,” He says, and she wants to. “Tell me, sweetpea, have you ever heard of the tale of Odysseus?”“Yes,” Clementine says. “But I don’t think he ever made it this far.”(Clementine is loyal to the point that she would literally go to hell and back for someone she loves. Someone like AJ. This is (kinda) that fic).





	Silver Lining

**Author's Note:**

> This is as applicable to everyone’s choices in-game as possible while sticking to canon. Very brief glimpses of almost every canon pairing for Clem, that are there if you squint, but not a major part of this fic in any aspect. There’s only one choice made by Clementine from the games that is explicitly built into this (from season 2), but everything else is free for all.
> 
> The numbering/counting of the birds in this is very loosely based on the "one for sorrow, two for joy kids’" rhyme (if you’re familiar with that). 
> 
> Tribute to Clementine, this game series, and Telltale. RIP <3

A shadow has followed Clementine for all of her life.

 On her eighteenth birthday, she decides to face it, ten years collapsed into a blink-space, a moment, an aching realisation. On her eighteenth birthday, she turns on the story, steps into the dark of it.

And follows it all the way home.

-

Arriving is simple; Clementine finds a light in her dreams and follows it - she knows she’ll need it to guide her through the darkness. She finds a light and follows it, a light glowing in the belly of a midnight bird, a beacon lit against the outstretched darkness, yellow and core-bright inside the small frame of the black bird.

It flies ahead of her, drawing her down, further and further, it flies faster and she starts to run, the ground under her feet tilting and she falls –

-

 

A shadow has followed Clementine for all of her life. It first found her when she was eight, in the shape of a man darker than the sun.

“Tell me,” he had asked her, the shadow cast long over her. “Have you ever heard of the tale of Odysseus?”

She opened her mouth to answer and –

 

-

Clementine wakes up into a dream, choking on dust; lining her lungs, coating her hands. She pushes herself up from the dirt that she’s fallen onto and looks around. She’s in a garden of some kind.

Peeled rinds of fruit are littered everywhere along the ground, the curling, bitter reek of it toxic in the air.

All around is the sweep of spring passing, the grass slowly browning underneath her feet, and dust, filmed over the branches of trees and coated across the ground, so thick that it coats the brown of Clem’s skin, the tangle of her hair, the rip in her old jeans.  

Her left fist opens and closes, prickling without a gun.

A tree stands in the centre of garden, the spread of its canopy reaching so high she can’t see the end of it. A woman’s standing by it as Clem approaches it. 

“Hello? Clementine calls out. The woman doesn’t answer. Her head is thick from the rising sour smell of the fruit, the dust in the air burning her tongue every time she speaks. 

She blinks twice, trying to clear the motes pricking at her eyes.

“Do I know you?” She tries again, calling out, but at her words there’s a startling burst of movement in the corner of Clem’s eyes and she whirls to look, braced, her hand going to hip for a weapon, fist closing on air instead.

Too late, she realises it’s nothing; just a lone bird shooting up from a tree skyward, but there’s something light and colourful shimmering faintly across the underside of its body. It looks almost like a shooting star, melting fast along her vision, a streak of colour. 

It all happens in a second and then it’s gone, and when Clementine looks back at the lady, she’s holding out something in offering to her.

It’s an axe, silver and bright under the lady’s touch, and it cuts through the dust motes like glass sliding through water.

“It’s for you,” the lady speaks for the first time, her voice low and familiar, “And only for you. It cannot be wielded by anyone else,” She says as Clem moves towards her, and takes it, examining it.

“Thank you,” Clementine says, looking back up at the lady, but she’s gone.

Clementine feels the heft of it, the wood of the handle settling with ease in her left hand. A weapon in her hand, and her feet on the ground. _AJ_ , Clementine thinks, _Hold on. I’m coming for you._  

Clementine takes a step forward and as she does a bird lands on the lowest branch of the Cypress tree, and when it opens its mouth it speaks.

“Remember, Clementine” it says, a woman’s voice, low and _so_ familiar. “Remember that you cannot take something here, not without leaving something else behind first.” It says it gently, and at the drop of those words Clem watches as its beak slowly turns from black to amber, as it rises up and disappears into the spread of the canopy.

It rises up and the glow of its beak cuts through the dust, clears the way through to a grassy path leading to a small bridge, a stream cool and glimmering winding slowly underneath it. 

A bell starts tolling, somewhere far beyond in the distance, and the call of it _pulls_ ; heavy and deep inside Clementine. She follows it, stepping onto the bridge, feels the cool breeze of spring against her face, settles determination into the tread of her feet.

-

Interlude for a memory in the darkness -

_\- AJ, his laughter hanging in the air, AJ, and then his sudden silence, cutting Clem in two, AJ, falling through the water and Clem falling in after him, Clementine diving deeper, Clementine reaching out for him in the dark, searching, reaching, going deeper and deeper –_

_-_

Time flickers and falls from her.

Clementine crosses the bridge and the path winds her upwards, towards the crest of a hill.

 She walks on and on, sun fixed firmly on the horizon. She walks on and on, the spring breeze is cool against the sweat on her skin, tight breathing in her lungs. She takes step after step and each time she looks up it’s like she hasn’t moved at all.

 A bird circles her in the sky, distant and gold. She comes to another bridge, the same river shimmering clear beneath her.

“All I have to do,” Clementine tells herself, as she steps across it, in a familiar mantra; the song of her life, “is get to the top of the hill.”

“All you have to do,” a man says next to her, in a familiar broad accent, “is to keep going.”

Clem starts, hand on axe, heart in mouth.

She looks and Luke is there next to her, heavy stride, untucked shirt, the weight of kindness still sagging on his shoulders. He reaches an arm out and squeezes her tight; it feels like a cold wind passing across her skin.

“So I’ve been told,” Clementine replies dryly, and he laughs. It’s been so long that she’s forgotten what it sounds like it; the lull of his accent, the honesty in his laugh. “What are you doing here?” Clem asks him.

 He shakes his head, saying instead “Look at you, Clem. You got so big.”

 “I outlived you all.” She replies, taste of bitterness stuck in her throat. A small, simple truth of her life.

 He laughs. “Ah hell Clem, that’s how it should be.”

 “Luke –” she begins, his name like dust in her throat, but he interrupts her.

 “You’re a survivor, Clem.” And he shakes his head again. “But I can help you with this, at least.”

And her pocket goes heavy, and she feels it, feels the weight like stones in a river, dragging her down. She stops walking and so does Luke, as she reaches a hand in and draws the small pieces of silver out, pennies glinting sharp against the dark of her hands.

Clem shakes her head. “I can’t take this.”

 “You have to, Clem” he tells her, and he smiles, turn of the story on a familiar axis. It’s all too familiar, and the glare of the sun against her skin, his smile against the blade on her axe; she wants to close her eyes against it.

Clementine looks up instead, just once. The sky above her now is clear and empty.

She can feel Luke watching her, as she starts up again, this time the crest of the hill looking a little closer.

He speaks again. “It’s okay Clem, really. I’ve got a lot to spare. People like to give them to me, when they come this way.”

He grins again. Clementine doesn’t. “At least take one,” she insists. Seven pieces of silver, maybe more. She can give him this, at least.

“No, Clem, I can’t. It would be a waste.” She frowns, but she speaks again. “Besides, we’re here.”

 Clementine looks around. They’re far beyond the other side of the bridge, at the top of the hill, standing near a field. The path they’ve been following disappears into tall, yellowing grass, some patches of it stretching higher than Clementine. She can barely see the way forward, can’t see at all how long it continues for. Already in it she can hear voices, can feel the heat of the summer wind blowing across.

There’s a loud tolling coming from within it, a heavy clanging, a low bell ringing somewhere in the distance. A path to follow. She can’t tell if Luke hears it too.

“Now all you have to do,” Luke tells her, “is to make it through this,” and she nods.

“All I have to do,” Clementine repeats, “is to keep going.”

She takes a step forward into it, then another, and then turns back to back to Luke one last time, but he’s gone.

 -

The field is high and thick and summer heat breaks over it all. She looks back, once, but she can’t see the path that brought her here. She looks forwards, and the horizon is a haze, blurred.

Clementine wades through it all, waist-deep, axe fitted into the palm of her hand, firm like a glove. She uses it to cut a path through the grass, the shine of turning amber, almost red under the heat and glaring sun. Voices swirl around her, indiscernible, and over it in the distance, she can hear someone singing, calling out, a song of longing.

And that bird is back, black-feathered and sleek-beaked it circles her, swooping low and lower towards her. Clementine grits her teeth, tries to ignore it as she wades through the field. Turn of the silver axe, rusted through with red, sweeping through Asphodel. She sees her parents shimmering on the right, and starts, she swings again, but they’re gone.

The ringing of a bell, in the distance.

She turns again, and again, cuts through glimmers of voices surrounding her like a haunting. “All you have to do” and it’s her father’s voice, warm and unfamiliar, on the right, “is to keep going.” And Clem spins towards it but there’s no one there, and -

 

_\- And then she’s in a field, a gun uncertain and unsteady in her left hand and she can’t stop trembling, even in the midday heat, the guts of the walkers stuck heavy and still damp against the front of her clothes, her hair flat under her cap and sticky with sweat against her neck. The press of her erratic heart, the heat, the closing of her sobs hours back when she left it all for dead. Stricken alone for the first time and a flicker of hope that says Christa, Omid, Christa, Omid, that just can’t seem to catch -_

 

She takes a step, almost trips, and on her left, another voice drifts towards her, close to the shell of her ear, her axe swinging towards it, the light caught sharp in the edge of it, “All you have to do,” and it’s her mother, sweet and distant, “is to keep going.”

And Clementine wants to yell, she’s been through this but she keeps her mouth shut, keeps the axe close to her and runs instead, trailed by the voices of her parents, pilgrimaging through the field until she arrives at a Cypress tree, bare of fruit or leaves.

And the bird that’s been following her lands on the lowest branch, watching her. A second arrives next to the first, the tips of its wings and tail already glowing gold.

“What?” Clem asks them, once she’s caught her breath. She closes her eyes briefly, sees red. Opens them again. “What do you want?”

“It’ll carry you as long as it needs to.” The first birds says, holding the voice of someone she can’t quite recognise. 

“What? What does that mean?” The frustration is simmering into the edges of her voice now.

“Remember,” The second bird says, in that same voice, ignoring her question, “if you want to leave here, you must never look back.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I know that,” Clementine tells them, trying to turn anger into sarcasm, trying to keep calm. Thinks of AJ. “I have to keep going, right?”

They don’t reply.

Clementine rolls her shoulders back, tightens her grip on the axe, and keeps going.

-

It’s hot when she comes to the middle of the field; the sun beats down hard against her skin and she takes her plaid top off, slings it around her waist instead.

Louis is there, waiting for her.

“Hey Clem,” he calls when she notices him, almost swaying in the summer breeze with the grass, hands tucked loose into his pockets, smile untucked and wide at her.

“Louis!” Clem calls back, and she runs to him but he takes a step back, and she falters, stops. He holds out his hand to her and she tries to take it - she can’t.

“Oh,” Clementine says, feeling foolish. 

“It’s okay, Clem,” He says, more seriously, and as their eyes meet she knows they both remember; _the soft press of piano keys, and Clem darting forward to kiss him, the lights burning low between their bodies and Louis’ smile, awkward and shy and happy -_

Now, Louis searches her face, and finds something there because his smile drops altogether.

“Oh.” He takes a step back from her. “You’re here for AJ, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, Lou,” Clem replies, “I came for him.”

“I miss that kid too, you know,” The corner of his mouth ticking up into a teasing smile, briefly. It’s a question Clem doesn’t want to answer. He presses his hands together, and she moves closer to him, reaching out like she’s about to take them into her own.

“I can’t, Louis,” she tells him, answering the question in his gaze. “I told you, I’m here for AJ.”

“You’re choosing him.” He says it softly, like it hurts. There’s not even a trace of humour flickering between them.  

“Always.”

He looks down, whispers it into the curl of his hands. “I’d choose you Clementine. Every time, I’d choose you.” She lays the flat of her left palm close over his; lets slip a silver coin into the cradle of his hands. The thread of his hair, blowing loose on the asphodel plains.

“I know, Louis.” Bends down and let’s slip a butterfly kiss against his knuckles, imagines the press of teeth and bone. “I know.”

She remembers not to look back when she leaves him, the weight in her pocket a little lighter.

-

 

“Tell me,” the shadow asks her, flickering now in the corner of her eye, “Have you ever heard of the tale of Odysseus?”

“Yes,” Clementine answers, like she always does. “But I never understood what took him so long.”

He moves into her field of vision and as he does a light breaks across his face, bringing the sharpness of his gaze, slant of his nose, into focus, and she leans in, trying to figure out if –

And he’s gone. He leaves her, like he always does.

 

-

This time, she finds Violet first.

She’s on the edge of Asphodel, legs kicking against a wooden fence. It looks out of place here, splintered and worn, like it be blown down in a gust of wind. Violet is sitting on the top of it, head of blonde, her hair longer than Clem’s ever seen it before.

“Hey,” Clem says, and hops up, settling next to her on the fence. Vi doesn’t seem surprised to find her there.

“Hey yourself,” Vi says, and glances at her.

The silence holds between them there but it’s comfortable. _I like the quiet_ , Vi had once told her, and it was something they shared.

"I don't know what to say," Violet admits, and Clem laughs, briefly. 

"Me neither," Clem says, and as she says "Violet, I -" The ring of a bell cuts through, startling them both. It begins to tug at Clem’s heart. _No_ , Clem thinks.

“I have to go,” Clem says, and it doesn't feel like enough. “I wish we had more time,” because she does. This thing with Violet, it’s hushed and still and something Clem knows she’ll never get to keep.

“Me too,” Vi says, and that’s enough to fill the space between them. Clem hops down to the other side of the fence and Vi squints down at her; Clementine standing in the cast of her shadow.

“I’m sorry,” Clementine says, looking up at her, and she thinks Violet nods.

“That’s the way you want,” Vi says instead, and she points to a path that narrows downwards past the field, leading to a bridge that Clem can just barely make out in the distance.

Clem turns back to Violet, digs in her pocket for the heft of a coin. “Here,” Clem says, looks up at her and tosses it. Violet catches it reflexively, holds it under the glare of the sun and squints down it, then looks back at Clem.

“I’m still waiting for someone, you know.” She tells her.

Clementine knows. Still, her mouth is dry, her lips are dusty, the press of longing against her throat that can’t seem to help. Clementine remembers Violet against her lips, their bodies wedged together, a small reflex of a moment. She’d pulled back and looked at her, had the urge to tell her _that was my first kiss._

But she never did.

“Keep it,” Clementine says, “in case.”

“Yeah,” Violet says, and the blonde finally grins at her, her words barely skirting a promise. “I guess I’ll see you around, Clem,”

“Not if I see you first,” Clementine she retorts, with an answering grin. Clem takes Violet in one last time, her stark pale hair, the lean of her body, hot against the summer, and then leaves her to the heat.

-

Another bridge to cross.

This one stretches farther than the others. Clem can’t see past the edge of it, and doesn’t try to for long. Looking down can be just as dangerous as looking back. It’s made from stone but it’s in ruins, patches of it crumbled or entirely missing.

The sun ahead of her is lower, and she doesn’t look back, but she can no longer feel the press of summer. Beyond it, Clem can see the path disappearing through wooded trees.

She steps onto it, delicately, trusting the stead of her feet, small and quiet; heart-strong and true. She’s halfway across it when three birds land silently, on the other side of it, their heads speckled with a dark gold, watching her.

Clem looks down for the first time, carefully takes another step and –

The stone beneath her feet crumbles into dust and she plunges down, crying out AJ’s name as she falls fast into the dark and -

-

 

She’s dreaming once more.

“Tell me,” he says, the sun now melting low and golden behind him. “Have you ever heard of the tale of Odysseus?”

She looks up at him. “Yes,” she replies, “but I don’t think I ever heard the end of it.”

“Well, honey,” the shadow says, with a ghost of a laugh, “I don’t think he did either.”

Clem hears the tolling of a bell in the distance, and when she opens her eyes, she’s standing near a bridge, extending upwards and above, and the gulch of tartarus stretching far below.

And the shadow is gone.

 

-

Clementine is next to a bridge and a small flowing stream, that as far as Clem can see, disappears far below. She’s fallen and landed dangerously close to the brink of tartarus, a cliff-like jut of hard white stone almost glowing and lit against the abyss reaching far below.

And something she hadn’t noticed before, or someone who wheezes out a cough and Clementine whirls, pulling her axe in one motion from her hip and fixing it into her left hand -

“You’re welcome, you know,” says an old man, crouched low by the crumbling bank of the rivers.

Clementine approaches him warily, takes him in. He's holding a wooden goblet, that's cupped tight between his worn hands. His feet are bare, the scruff of his beard is grey.  

“For what?”

“I saved you. You would’ve gone all the way down if I didn’t pull you back.” She doesn’t reply, doesn’t give him anything. His accent grates on her, in a way that she’d forgotten.

She lets the silence simmer between them, watches as he leans forward to fill up the wooden cup.  He closes his eyes as he takes a sip, something like relief appearing on his face.

There’s a rush of sound above, and then four birds arrive, flitting downwards to land between his bare, outstretched feet, three of them flecked gold along their undersides. The fourth has a beak entirely yellow, entirely brilliant.

He doesn’t seem to notice when he opens his eyes again. He looks up at her, still standing over him. He holds the cup up towards her. “You should take this. Take this and it’ll get easier.”

Something terrible and pleading in his eyes, something honest. Clementine shakes her head, refuses. “Never. That’s not what I’m looking for.”

“Don’t lie to me, little girl,” he replies, and it’s almost mocking. “It’s what everyone comes here for.”

She looks down at him, scruff of beard as grey as the sky above them.  “You, old man,” she says, aiming the retort with a cock of her eyebrow, swing of her hip, “are all bark, no bite.”

“That’s the most honest anyone’s been with me in years.”

He wheezes out a laugh and suddenly, Clementine can’t take this anymore. His face is sunken and lined but he hasn’t changed at all, and it hurts to be around him like this. She turns to leave but he calls out to her.

“Wait” he says, and she turns back to look at him, cracked fingernails scratching at his chin. “Didn’t I know you, once?”

“I’m surprised you can remember,” Clementine replies. She watches as he fills up the cup once more from the river Lethe, goes to drink from it. He brings the cup to his lips, then stops.

“Yes,” he says, finally looking up at her, and setting the cup down gently beside him, without taking a single drop from it.

“I remember. I saved you,” he repeats, and then he looks at her, right through her, and Clementine shivers.

And Clementine makes a choice then, the easiest one so far. She draws out a coin, and kneels down to face those terrible eyes (and it hurts, _it hurts_ to look at him), presses it into his palms.

“Take it,” she whispers his own words back to him, letting her voice lilt him into guilt. “Please.”

She knows he won’t refuse. He never could resist the call of a helpless child, even now.

“Okay, Clem,” Kenny says, and the scruff of his beard is grey. “Okay. Just for you.” He passes his hand through hers, and she watches his slow realisation; He can’t even take her hand; he never will.

He takes her coin, her offering, but Clementine knows then in that moment that he’ll never use it.

She hears the ringing of the boat in the distance once more. Clem wonders if he can hear it as well. Wonders if he knows that she will always leave him like this; and that he will always leave her hurting.

He clears his throat. “Clem…I want you to know…I…I never wanted you to see me like this.”

“I know.” And she does, and his own helplessness turns in her to pity, falls like a seed into her gut.

“I’m sorry, Clementine, for everything.” He repeats, and repeats, and reaches out to hug her, tries to draw her close but his hands fall straight through her skin.

He’s already forgotten.

“Here, Kenny,” and she stands, picks up the cup, passes it from her hands to his. He welcomes it, shaking, and she meets his eyes as he drains it once more, the recognition fading from his eyes. 

She hopes they never have to meet again.

-

Stepping onto a bridge in a place like this, Clementine knows, is always a delicate process. A sheer exhale could collapse it, turn the already dead to dust beneath her living feet. This bridge is wooden, narrow and stretched out, plank after plank. She’s careful this time, not even daring to look down. Four birds fly ahead of her and she follows the light of them, guiding her through once more. She leaves the river Lethe, follows the bridge that turns to a path along the river until she dreams of waking up.

-

 

The shadow is waiting for her when she does.

 His skin is obsidian black, and she understands when he speaks, soft and commanding. His voice, the only voice that could raise the river Styx.

“Tell me,” He says, and she wants to. “Tell me, sweetpea, have you ever heard of the tale of Odysseus?”

“Yes,” Clementine replies, “But I don’t think he ever made it this far.”

 

-

Clementine follows the bridge and it takes her out of the cavern, the echoes of her footsteps fading behind her as she reaches –

 _Another fucking bridge_ , she thinks.

The waves of the river lapping much closer to the bottom of this one. She starts to cross over the river Styx, for the fifth time, and this time, in the middle of the bridge someone’s waiting for her.

His eyes meet hers and it feels like arrival; a landing on solid ground.

She runs to hug him, rushing across the bridge, forgetting almost everything she’s learnt. Her arms fall through his and she comes to an abrupt halt, again, again, _again._

“Hey,” Clem says, around the lump in her throat.

“Clem,” Javi grins her, and then she notices what’s strapped to his back.

“You’re kidding me,” she says loudly “You’ve _still_ got that fucking baseball bat.”

“You’re just jealous,” he retorts. “Most people are.”

“Stop distracting me.” But Clem’s smirking now, and so is he. “But what are you doing here?” 

“I’m here to help you.” He answers, because no one here can give Clementine a straight fucking answer.

“And what about Gabe?” She asks him, hoping he doesn’t pick up on -

Javier grins at her, too quickly. “Nice to know you care.”

“Shut up,” Clem replies with a roll of the eyes, flick of a mock-glare towards him, and Clem’s missed this. She’s missed him.

“He’s fine. They all are. I think.” 

“You don’t know?”

"They’re not the only ones I was waiting for.”  

“Listen, Javi, I can help.”

“Clementine,” he says, like he knows what she’s about to offer. “All you need to do here is to keep going.”

She fights the urge to stamp her foot. She _knows_. She’s been living that way for ten years.

“But I can help, look, just look-” And reaches into her pocket for a palm full of silver, realises how light her pocket has gotten. Four coins remain, suddenly seeming small and tiny in her palm. Since when did she have so little left?

“Four,” she croaks out, this weight of living. “God, Javi, I’ve only got four left –” Tears press against the back of her eyes; she doesn’t cry. She _will not cry_.

“Clem, Clem, Clem, hey it’s okay –” He puts her arms around her and she leans in – and they go straight through her. She can’t feel them; she never will.

She pulls back and wipes the back of her eyes against her sleeve. She stares hard at the stone-bridge ground, and for a moment Clem wants to lose control, she wants to let fly her axe and tear up this whole world, she wants to throw the coins in the Styx and follow them down, she wants to _live_ , she wants to stop hating herself for that.

Turn of the story, her best friend strung out on  _waiting_ and her, unable to fix it, unable to look back or look down or do anything but turn into the sun and _hope_.

“Clem it’s okay,” he repeats, his hands out to her, his whole body in a helpless shrug. “I never wanted those anyway. I can’t leave my family, Clem. Not now. Not after everything.”

Clementine lets her voice go ragged at the edges when she replies. “I know.” Thinks to herself _I wish I had a coin for every time I said that_ , and then fights the urge to laugh. She thought she was past this.

Clem sighs, turns and steps forward to rest her arms against the grey marble banister of the bridge. It’s sturdy and solid, and somehow with Javi here she thinks, at least for now, it’s safe.

She pins her gaze on the sun in the distance, sinking deep and harvest red. A flock of birds, streaking amber and black, fly across the low horizon, calling, singing out to each other. _That makes five,_ she thinks distractedly. Javi steps up next to her in a similar pose, resting his elbows next to hers. He glances briefly at the sunset and whistles, but she can feel his eyes, worried, slip back to her.

“I didn’t know the sun could set here.” He says idly. She looks sideways at him, meets his unwavering gaze with her own. For the first time since she’s known him, he’s looking at her with an expression she can’t place.

Clementine takes a breath.

“I’ve really missed you, Javi.” Let’s everything else fall through the gaps. _I’m really glad I met you. I really hope we meet again._

“I always miss you, Clem,” he replies, and the brazen honesty burns, just enough for her to hang onto. 

They stand side by side, watching the slow disappearance of the sun. A bell starts tolling as they do.

Clementine doesn’t say goodbye, but leaves him there, still waiting. She leaves a silver coin, too, flat and rusty under the autumn sun, next to his hand resting atop the banister on the bridge.

It doesn’t matter if she can’t save anyone or not. Clementine can’t seem to stop trying.

-

 

“Tell me,” the shadow says, and it’s a familiar tune. “Tell me, have you ever heard of the tale of Odysseus?”

“Yes,” Clementine replies, always. “All he had to do was keep going.”

“Sometimes,” he replies, almost kindly, “That’s not enough.”

And Clementine wakes up into fire. 

 

-

The heat of the river is making her sweat, ash riding up into the air and she suppresses the urge to cough.

She can’t look back, but she looks across at the man, sitting beneath the huge towering arch of the bridge she needs to cross, a black stone structure rising past him, past the bridge, in the distance.

The Phlegethon churning spits as it heaves and froths past them, and the proximity of it has blackened the bridge, left it hardened and formidable.

Six birds are perched on the top of the arch, watching as she approaches the man.

“This,” Clementine pronounces loudly, when she’s closer, “is a load of bullshit.”

Carver just studies her back as she stands over him, resentment taught in the frame of his bones, her narrow hold on her axe, fury instead of fear built into the lines around Carver’s eyes.

“Well, well, well,” he taunts, and she feels the anger rise. She grips her axe tighter. “Never thought I’d see you again.”

Clementine grits her teeth. “I’m not doing this. Let me pass.”  

He ignores her. “The last thing I remember,” he says, smile sharpened into a blade, “is you refusing.” _Stench of fear choking the air, bursts of screams and laughter, Luke’s hand on Jane’s, awful glints of silver, Sarah’s panic electric against the night, a bell ringing in the distance –_

Her eyes snap back to his. _Bursts of screams and laughter._ “The last thing I remember,” Clem accuses, coiling her words to strike, “is you asking a little girl to _torture_.”

He laughs again. She wants to rip him to shreds. “Darlin, by the time we met, you were all grown up.”

“I was _twelve_.”

“And look at you, now.” He _leers_ at her, and she levels a bullseye glare back at him; leans into the edge of her anger and lets it carry her through. His laugh grates on her and it’s a hacking, firm thing; the thump of an axe against dirt.

He crooks a finger towards her with a smile to match, drawing her in close like he’s about to give up a terrible secret.  “You’ll never leave here,” he mock-whispers to her. “No matter how hard you try, you can’t ever leave.”

Flickering memory of night, and that damn bell starts ringing in the distance. She leans into him further, lets the beat of her heart rattle into the space between them.

“I know that,” Clementine tells him back, with a timed rise of the eyebrow. “Of course I know that. Why do you think I came here?”

She doesn’t give him a chance to reply, instead letting loose a silver penny, drops it into the wet mud between his feet.

“You’re right,” she continues, baring her full gaze at him, hate bleeding through. “Last time we met, I _did_ refuse.”

 And in a swift, sudden movement, she steps back, hefts the axe in her left hand over her head, which has been waiting this whole time, coiled tight between her fingers. Clementine looks at him, meets him eye to eye, then brings the axe down hard onto his skull.

-

At the splitting of the axe against something solid, the coin slips, already soft in the heat, down through the mud, and melts into the fires of the river.

And Clementine doesn’t look back.

-

Birds all flecked between dark and light, gold and black, rushing past her as she leaves the Phlegethon. It’s dark now, the sun almost fully set, and the only light is from the bellies of the birds. She can’t see the end of the bridge, can’t see where she’s treading but she trusts her feet, her hands, the beat of her heart. She keeps going, the black of the bridge blending in with the oncoming night, and it’s only when the ground under her changes that she can tell she’s stepped off the seventh bridge, made the seventh crossing.

-

 

She doesn’t know if she’s dreaming this time.

“Tell me,” he says, and she wants to. The sun burning low and faint behind his shadowed face. “Have you ever heard of the tale of Odysseus?”

“I think,” she replies, “that I dreamt it once.”

“Well then,” he says, and she thinks if she could see it in the twilight, he would be smiling. “It’s time to wake up.”

 

-

A shadow has followed her for all of her life, and when she finally wakes, it’s there to greet her.

-

She can tell he arrives as the last of the sun finally sets, the air turning frigid and bitter, the dark following in his wake. She’s standing in the shade of a Cypress tree, near another bank of the river Styx.

A single bird flies over to her, and she holds out her arm. It lands on her, digging its small sharp talons into the bite of her right wrist and perching there. The whole of it is a brilliant gold, the heart of a sun hung in miniature on her arm.

The shadow steps towards her, steps _through_ the dark and -

“Do you see it yet?” He asks her, gently, like it hurts. He waits for her, like he always has. Let’s her do the breaking.

 

And finally, she does.

 

“Oh,” it’s all she can manage; refrain of a bird call, of a familiar heartbreak. _Oh, oh, oh._ She’s struck speechless. Her voice is in her heart; her heart is in his hands.

He takes another step, and crouches down to her level, reaches out a finger to stroke the bird on her arm. She watches him, watches the movement of his fingers, gentle, left to right, sliding across the throat of the bird. She watches, transfixed, as a trail of gold follows from the tips of his finger where he touches it, spreading in motion across its body.

 “A shadow,” she whispers, realisation swirling thick, “has guided me all of my life.” A grave-mark moment; her eyes meet his. She waits for him, like she always has. Let’s him do the building.

Clementine looks at him against the spread of stars against the underground dark of night, as sleet begins falling gently around them.

 

Lee Everett smiles at her, and she’s almost brought to her knees.

 

“Clementine.” He says her name like a drop of honey, smoke on water. _Here it is_ , she thinks. _At last. My silver lining._

She doesn’t know what to say, only that under his gaze she can feel the tiredness in her feet, the burning in her lungs, the dust still lingering at the back of her throat. She digs into her pocket, holding out the last coin in her left hand.

“I brought you this.” She says, and she means it.

“Sweetpea,” he replies, with the echo of another life, “I can’t take it. That’s not for me.” And suddenly she feels so _childish_. So _foolish_. She gave up everything for this, for a palm full of silver.

“But I came all this way,” Clem continues, voice brittle, voice breaking, “For _you_.” He takes a step forward, closes his hands around hers – and she can’t feel them. Can’t feel anything at all. She squeezes the coin tight, tighter, in her hand. _If wishes were silver –_

 

Eyes full of grief; they both meet. She knows. She’s always known.

(But she’s always hoped, too.)

 

“You know that’s not true, honey.” He says, his gaze on hers. “But I can take you a little further. I’ll help you for as long as you need it.” The words fall gently between them, and she can hear it in his voice. _This is the best I can do_.

“But the way that I’ll take you - It’s dangerous, Clementine. And if I take you, Clem, you can’t ever come back.”

“I can handle it,” she fires back. _Because I won’t be coming back either way,_ Clem thinks.

He grins at her, quick and bright. “I know. If anyone could, it would be you.” And Clem grins back, and for a moment she feels eight years old again.

“Come on then, Clem,” and holds out his hand. She can’t take it but she steps into his shadow instead, and he leads her into the night.

-

She can’t feel him, can’t touch, but he keeps her close under his shadow, and eventually they arrive just before the dawn, guided through the night by the light of her bird glowing between them and a flock of them, higher above, the dim cast of the night turned molten and irradiant against the stretch of their golden bodies.

-

“Here,” Lee says, “this is as far as I can take you.” They arrive, against a low shore, the water stretching out like an ocean rather than a river. Clem shivers against the cold, keeping close to him for just a moment longer.

He glances towards the sun as it begins to rise. “Well look at that.” Lee says, hint of awe in his voice “It’s almost dawn.” All the colours of the world, laid out low across the horizon. He looks down and arches an eyebrow at her. “You did that, you know.”

“I’m aware,” she replies, because she has been for a while now. She arches an eyebrow right back at him, and he laughs, sunlight breaking over water.

The bird that’s been clinging to her through the night, suddenly leaps into the air, its wings stretched wide. They both watch it spiral up into the air, disappearing through the light fall of snow.

“One last thing,” Lee says, breaking the gentle silence once more, “You have until the snow stops falling.”  

Clementine frowns at that; Lee was never one for being vague, at least not with her. He glances down and notices the sullen expression on her face, and laughs again.

“Ah honey, that’s the best I’ve got. I’m helping you in the only way I can.” Clementine doesn’t answer but looks out again, at the churning dark of the water. She admits it then, just the once, because it’s Lee, and because she’s Clementine.

“I’m scared, Lee.” His name on her tongue, out loud for the first time, and it thrums live in the air between them, turns solid, turns bright and silver.

“Oh, Clem,” he says, and he crouches down to face her. It’s starting to feel like a goodbye and she’s not ready for that yet; the refrain of a memory tucked tight to her heart. He raises his hand to her face, stopping a breath short from cupping her cheek.

“What can I say to make you feel better?” He asks her. Clementine closes her eyes and leans into him, imagines she can feel the press of his warm hands, dry and big, holding her there.

“Nothing,” Clementine says, honestly, and it hurts, and then the tears are pricking the corner of her eyes.

Clementine opens her eyes and holds her gaze on his, the raw edge of grief bleeding against the truth, scraped back from years of being worn down “There’s nothing you can say at all.”

She takes him in, the lines of his face, the crinkle along his eyes, as long as possible. A bell starts ringing, and it’s very close now, and it’s pulling her away from him, from Lee. _Please_. She thinks. _If wishes were silver -_

“Clementine-” Lee begins, but she interrupts him.

“I don’t want to leave you. I _can’t_ leave you.” She says, her voice slightly raised, because this, too, is also the truth scraped back, is years of a song held quiet in the dark.

“I know, Sweetpea.” He answers her, “but I can’t let you stay. I would never keep you here, Clem.” Clementine knows. She wants to hate him for it; she knows she never could.  

Lee stands back up, stepping back, widening the space between them, the morning light growing clearing into a gap that can’t be crossed. And Clem’s crying now, because of the light, because of his gaze, because of the motions of her life turning over and over again.

“But –” she stammers, one last thought crossing her mind, “What about - What about Odysseus?”

He smiles at her, fully, and she knows then that is as hard for him as it is for her. It helps, somehow.

“Well, Clementine,” he replies, and it hangs tenderly between them; the finality. “It’s like you said. Not even he made it this far.”

And there’s a bell ringing in the distance.

-

 

A shadow has followed Clementine for all of her life.

When she turns eighteen, it carries her to the water and leaves her there, for the first time and last, vanishing into the cool of the morning.

And lets her find her own way home. 

 

-

He leaves her on the shores of the Acheron, and after a while, a raft arrives, bumping gently at the foot of the river Clem stands at. It’s held together by red string, thin and sagging and barely keeping them together. A flagpole stands weighted in a corner, and a black bird stands at the top of it, perched and silent.  Clementine eyes it warily, but still steps across onto it.  

 

 _All you have to do_ , Clem thinks, grit of her teeth and a pull in her spine, _is to keep going_. Blinks the tears back; lets the hope in.

 

The water is dark and deep beneath her, heavy and tumbling but she pushes the fear down, thinks of AJ.  She grips the mast of it, knowing that to touch the water would be dangerous, would maybe make her lose her way for good.

They set off, precariously, Clem huddled in the centre of it. It carries her onwards, and in the distance she can see the other side, faintly, can see the other bank of the river rising up -

And then the bird, silent til now, opens its mouth and says, in the echo of a woman’s voice she once knew, that she can _almost_ remember – “You need to pay the toll.”

Clementine straightens and looks it in the eyes. “I already have,” she tells it, conviction thrumming in her voice. _Haven’t I given up enough?_ Clem thinks.

There’s two coins left in her pocket. But she needs both of them.

The bird repeats itself. “You need to pay the toll.”

And in a blink, before Clementine can answer, the raft flips and she’s under the water, losing her grip on the weak rope, it slips out and she’s left panicking, her hand reaching out, grasping at nothing, the churn of the ice cold water pushing her down and burning against her skin, she pushes upwards but the water seems to press back against her, Clem tries to burst through it but she’s sinking instead, and it’s so cold she can’t seem to move her legs, and her lungs are burning too, and then she hits the side of something hard, and she can see her own blood swirling away in the water but she reaches out, and finally finds purchase on the hard rock edge of the river.

She pushes off it and uses the momentum to drag herself up through the cold. coming clear through the surface gasping and all at once hit by the raw winter wind. She grits her teeth and swims through the bite of the cold, water spraying in her eyes and throat, uses the power in her legs kick herself slowly, and painfully, to shore.

Clem reaches the bank of the river and slowly drags herself up, crawling through the mud, the blunt of her fingernails scrabbling in the soft shore for grip. She’s hacking up water and disorientated; for a moment she expects to find guts on her shirt, hands covered in blood. Clem crawls away from the water’s edge until she can’t and then lays there, breathing hard, flat on her back.

“AJ,” she gasps out after a moment. She can’t seem to stop trembling; the cold and the fear are turning the edges of her vision black, the tips of her fingers numb. It’s morning but Clem can’t see the sun, and snow is falling heavier now onto her as she lays there.

After a moment, after two, Clementine heaves herself up. She pulls off her shoes and socks, leaves them and the soggy shreds of her jacket on the bank of the Acheron. She feels in her pocket; there’s only one coin left.

Her axe is missing; lost to the water, and she stumbles, shivering, off-balance from the sudden lack of weight. Her hair is wet and flat and stinging against the sides of her cheek. The temperature here is much colder than the other side of the river, already her clothes are turning from wet to freezing against her body.

“AJ,” Clementine says out loud, again, like a promise. 

Shivering numb in the cold, she presses her frozen hands to the crook of her armpits and starts to stumble forward, almost falls, straightens and keeps going until she reaches a bridge.

Clementine crosses it, and arrives in a garden.

-

It’s white and quiet where she finds him, small and curled beneath a cypress tree. The puff of his dark hair hidden beneath a familiar looking cap. He’s calling her name, softly, she can hear it even in the muffled stillness of this place.

A child crying in the cold, like the song of her life. She runs to him, gathers his frozen body close to her.

“AJ,” She says his name over and over; voice breaking, voice broken. “AJ, AJ, I’m here.” She rocks him back and forth in her arms, and his eyes flutter, his breath a faint stutter in the cold.

“Cl—Clem?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.”  

“Is it really you?” He sounds cold. He sounds scared. He sounds like he might be dying and looks like it too, and for the first time, fear slanting quietly into the cusp of her heart. She holds him tighter, feels the prick of tears at the corner of her eyes.

“Of course it is, goofball,” Clem tells him. _Hold on AJ,_ she thinks, _We’re almost there._ “Come on, we need to go. Can you stand?”

“I think so,” he says, and she lets him go, reluctantly as he gets up. The skin under his eyes are coloured blue, his hair and clothes frozen like ice against his body. She lets him flex his legs, then stands up too, snow clinging to the hem of her clothes.

She holds out her hand for him to take, and turns to leave, when he speaks.

“Wait, Clem.” She turns back to look at him. He looks so _small_ and she fights the urge to pick him and _run_.

“What is it?”

“I have to put this back.” And he unfurls his hand to show her a bell, once silver, but almost rusted through to copper.

“AJ,” she asks, the fear growing inside her. “Where did you get that?”

He shrugs, gazing down at it. “I kept it because it was pretty, but it doesn’t even work. Look.” And he turns it over, showing her the empty space in the centre of the bell, where the tongue should have hung.

She looks at it hard, then back into the pale of his face and says firmly, “You should definitely leave that behind.”

“Yeah.” He places it in the earth, between a patch of white hyacinths, covers it delicately. He finally takes her hand and the only way out is the way they came. When they leave, the landscape is changed.

The river is frozen solid, is a sheer slick layer of ice. They both stare at it for a moment.

“All we have to do,” Clementine says to AJ, glancing down at him, “is to keep going.”

“Clemmy,” he says, and he can’t quite hide his trembling.

“Come here, goofball,” and she leans down to pick him up, like he’s still a baby and she’s still a girl. He grips her tight, even though the two of them are both freezing, with barely any body-warmth to spare.

The tread of her heart, the steady stride of her feet, AJ tucked close in her arms. She’s carrying everything she has.

Clem takes a breath. The ice looks thin as a sheet, slick and fragile, and she knows that the strength of herself is enough to ferry the two of them across it.

“Come on, AJ,” she sing-songs to him, as she takes a step, slowly onto the ice, then another, and another, the last coin in her pocket weighing like a stone. “I’m taking us home.”

Clem focuses on AJ, on balancing him as he begins to warm in her arms, on the thick snow, and the quiet all around them, and as she walks, slowly, she begins to hum, begins to sing quietly, an old song held deep, somewhere cavernous and forgotten inside her until now.   

 

Seasonal survival. _I’ve done this before_ , she thinks. One foot, then another, then another, then another- _The fading cries of Rebecca’s baby muffled in the snow, pulling the blue undersized jacket tight around herself, trying to keep the gun in her grip, the tips of her fingers turning blue, wind biting against her cheeks, stumbling in the cold and she’s alone again, Kenny and Jane have both left her here so she just keeps going, one foot, then another, then another –_

She’s been doing this for ten years. She’s been doing this for her entire life.

 

Clementine lifts AJ higher and higher. She keeps AJ aloft, making sure that no part of him touches, keeps her voice steady, the song clearing louder across the frozen surface as it gets harder to move, gets colder, but she keeps going.

She sees someone else in the distance, far to the right of them and squints. “Who is that?” he whispers to Clem as they pass the figure, thin and limber and heading in the opposite direction from that.

“Her name,” Clementine replies in a murmur, “was Jane.” She tries to ignore the burning in her chest, focusing on AJ, the weight of him in her arms, leaving the struggling figure of Jane far past them. 

And she keeps going.

-

A child crying in the dark, and the song of her life. It carries them through the winter, across the water, and all the way to shore.

-

They reach the other side of the Acheron, and as soon as they step off it, Clementine starts to warm. A warm spring breeze passes through her, and she can feel her fingers start to thaw, her skin turning from blue to brown.

They’re in a garden, once more, and all around them are flowers blooming, white hyacinths like the one AJ buried his bell near, but purple and blue ones too.

There’s a path, grassy and green, sloping towards the entrance of a tunnel. And birds all around, on the ground, and Clem has to step around them to get through.

She’s used to their silence by now, but AJ is watching them, even reaches out a hand to touch the gold beak of one.

“Don’t,” Clem warns him.

“It’s okay Clem, look. They have your eyes.”

“What?” Clem asks, startled, looking over as he crouches down to look at one. It looks steadily back at him.

“Can’t you see it, Clemmy?” He says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s the colour of your eyes.”

Clementine freezes, because he’s right, and then laughs, and it’s like water being drawn from the bottom of a well, like something finally unearthed soft and green beneath her.

“Yeah AJ,” she replies, because he’s right. She hadn’t noticed at all. _Oh Lee_ , she thinks. “Yeah, they sure are.”

He yawns then, swaying on his feet, and Clem frowns, five years of nurturing instinct kicking in. She sighs. “Come here kid,” and picks him up once more, and he lets her.

“Thanks, Clemmy,” he murmurs, and as Clem turns and starts to approach the tunnel, she notices a woman standing in front of it, smiling at the two of them. Clementine holds AJ tighter, fear suddenly running a tight thread between her grip on AJ, his head raised to look around at the woman, the woman’s eyes on the two of them.

“Rebecca,” Clementine greets her, feeling ashamed that it took this long to recognise her.

“Clementine,” she says, and notices the way her eyes keeping sliding towards AJ, like she can’t help staring at him. AJ stays quiet and still in Clem’s arms, and she wonders if he can recognise her.

Rebecca holds out her hand and Clem shifts AJ into her left hand, digs the last coin out with her right. An offering, then.

She holds the last coin out to Rebecca, like a summons, like a wish, and even before Rebecca takes it, Clementine knows, she _knows_ it won’t be enough.

 _You can’t_. Clementine thinks. It’s the song of Clementine’s life; there’s always one more thing to give up. _But not this. Not after everything. Not after we’ve come so far_.

“You know the rules, Clementine,” Rebecca, and she says it like it’s breaking her heart. “But,” Rebecca continues, finally tearing her eyes away from AJ to meet Clem’s, “Just this once, I rather think I owe you.”

And she smiles at Clementine, darkly and fully and painfully, turns that smile on AJ who smiles back, uncertainly, and in the next soft breath of spring wind she disappears, leaving a second coin filthy and seeded in the ground.

For a moment they stand there, and Clementine’s heart is caught in her throat. “Holy shit,” she breathes out. _We’re going to make it_.

Clementine sets AJ down, once more.  

“Take it,” Clem tells him. “It’s yours.”

He doesn’t ask her about the lady; Clem thinks he might already know. He bends down and plucks the coin from the mud, slips it into his pocket, and when Clem picks him up again, she can feel the weight of it, sitting heavy and loose in his pocket,

Together, with AJ in her arms, Clementine steps into the tunnel. She holds AJ close, takes a final breath. And she starts to sing.

-

A rushing of wings all around her, in the soft darkness of the earth. She keeps singing, her voice high and dissonant, and for a moment imagines the breath of a spring breeze around her ankles, the bottom hem of her old yellow dress blowing up gently. She keeps going, AJ growing lighter and lighter between her arms, the flapping of wings, golden light bursting through, and Lee’s voice right behind her, a shadow guiding her back into the light -

_\- “You can’t look back,” Lee had told her, and because it was Lee, and because it was for AJ, and because she was Clementine, she didn’t -_

\- And the refrain of him in her head, echo of all things past, they’re almost there now, and Lee telling her that he would never let her stay, no – it’s her own voice, saying that, reaching out and then they’re through the darkness, stepping into the morning, and AJ is still in her arms –

-

Two silver coins, dropped into the soft of the earth. The sun rising, over and over, Clementine falling into the water and out again, carried ten years through with just the steady rhythm of her heart and the promise of return. A song of living unearthed in the belly of a bird that guided her there and back again.

-

They stumble through the dark, girl carrying boy carrying the song into the morning.

-

“Hey, Clemmy?”” AJ yawns as he swivels his head to look around, blinking in the sudden light. “Are we home yet?” He asks her.

They’re standing in the front garden of a house, insects humming loud and multitudes of birds calling out to each other in morning-song.  Weeds are overgrown everywhere, strangling flowers and shooting up through a tall, canopied tree.

The lull of spring morning, slowly waking up into life. A walker shuffling slow and far off across the street, half the house they stand in front of collapsed through, abandoned and rotting.

 

Something small; something precious; something close. _Home_. It doesn’t seem as distant as it once was.

 

“Not yet, AJ,” Clem replies, “We’re almost there.” She tilts her head back into the sun, lets it hit her face. _We’ll be okay, AJ._ Refrain on a promise, finally coming true.

"But,” she says after a moment as she starts to walk, looking down to the boy in her arms, carried through the belly of the underworld and out again, “I can tell you a story.”

“Yes,” he says, quietly now. “Please.”

“Tell me,” she says, looking down at him, his eyes fluttering shut to the sound of her voice, imagines that the low edge of it is faint with grief. Clem wonders if it’ll bleed through into his dreams.

“Have you ever heard of the tale of Odysseus?”

-

 

A shadow has followed Clementine for all of her life.

On her eighteenth birthday, she turns on the story, steps into the dark of it.

And follows it all the way home.

 

-

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly this started as a small one shot tribute to Clem in-game and spawned into this crazy long-form greek myth au fic.
> 
> A few things of note: This is the longest piece of fictive writing that I’ve ever done before. I began writing this before the news broke about Telltale, but immediately decided to go back and finish this as soon as I could. No matter what happens with the final season (everything about the situation is so heartbreaking) Clementine (as well as TFTB and their other series’) will always mean a lot to me, and I needed to post something. If you made it through this fic, then I’m super impressed and I’d also love to hear what you think <3
> 
> I’m sorry if I messed up the season 4 characters; I didn’t get a chance to play it before it was removed from Steam for sale so I’ve been going off lets-plays, but I haven’t had that much time to go through them, so RIP. 
> 
> I included people that I thought were the most formative or most impactful on Clementine, which is why a lot of minor characters (or even major ones) didn’t make it; and I also took huge liberties with the geography of the greek underworld (and really every aspect greek myths lbr) and kinda reworked it to fit this.
> 
> If you have questions about any of the symbolism or references, or even why certain characters were/weren't included, then I’m happy to explain as well :)


End file.
